


Objects in the Mirror

by picarats



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Character Study, Gen, Growing Up, Mike-Centric, POV Minor Character, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:47:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23156545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picarats/pseuds/picarats
Summary: Somehow, Mike Newton had always known he'd be the one that people forgot about. Unfortunately, knowing something and accepting it are two different things.Eight years after Bella and Edward's wedding, Mike finds his past and present colliding, Jessica is an unemployed defence attorney-turned-bartender, Eric is possibly the best roommate ever — and the worst — and Angela probably should have moved out of their apartment years ago. Carlisle is oblivious.(Mike-centric, set post-series. Vaguely canon-compliant.)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 35





	Objects in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

Somehow, Mike Newton had always known he’d be the one that people forgot about.

Sure, he’d been ‘popular’ in high school — benefits of hanging out with the one girl who’d managed to cross the barrier between the normal students and, well, the Cullens — but he hadn’t been a memorable face, nor had he done anything to _be_ that memorable in the first place.

It was… fine.

Since moving to Los Angeles for work, Mike hadn’t exactly thought twice about what he’d left behind in Forks: not since his mom had basically pushed him out of the Newton nest after his dad died and _especially_ not since all of the friends he was probably supposed to have ‘lost touch with’ had become his roommates after college.

They’d all accidentally migrated from the rainiest town in the world to a sunspot on the West Coast. Life was funny like that, Mike thought.

He’d never thought that one day he’d be standing in a pair of burgundy scrubs, either. But here he was; Mike’s shift in the Emergency Room had started four hours ago and already he was cursing the arches in his feet for aching so much.

The last person he had seen had a nasty burn from a grease fire; the one before him had accidentally broken her finger. Both of the patients had immediately started to refer to Mike as ‘doctor’ and both of them had been outraged when he’d informed them that he was a nurse practitioner instead.

At the time, Mike had _thought_ he’d gone through four years of college for his Bachelor’s; now, it seemed like he’d done it just to have the people he was treating ask for a ‘proper doctor’ instead. Yeah — life _was_ funny like that.

“Nurse,” an unsure voice called. Mike turned on his heel, stopping the five feet he was away from the coffee machine. _So close. “_ I need you to consult on something back in the ER.”

It was one of the new guys — Barnes or Bates or something like that. The hospital had really started to push for new staff over the past year. Mike was grateful for that — it meant that there was less pressure and faster wait times — but the amount of colleagues that he’d been ‘introduced to’ over the last few months had been staggering compared to the rest of the three years he’d been working there. It was kind of tiring.

The end of it was that Mike just couldn’t keep anyone’s names straight anymore. He was certain that by the way that Barnes was referring to him by ‘nurse’ — not his real name, no matter how many twelve-hour shifts he’d done — that the other man was in exactly the same boat.

With a barely-perceptible grimace, because he really was looking forward to that coffee, Mike snapped back into work mode.

“Walk with me,” he said, making his way back into the heart of the ER. Barnes followed. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I did triage,” he explained, passing the clipboard. “Caucasian male, early twenties, lacerations all over his face. So, yellow, right? But — and here’s the weird part — he’s not in pain. At all.”

“Not in —” Mike frowned. “Did you do the pain scale?”

Barnes stopped next to a divider. He crossed his arms. “Yep. _Zero.”_

Mike raised his eyebrows — the only thing he could do, really — skimmed the top of the ER notes and walked in.

“Jamie,” he greeted, smiling at the man on the bed. “I’m Mike. I’ve been told you don’t feel any pain. Is that right?”

Jamie grinned. His smile was twinkly, like in an old Hollywood movie. His face was red like Carrie White’s.

“Yeah, man,” he answered, holding his hand out for a fist-bump. “I feel fine.”

“Do you think he has congenital insensitivity to pain?” Barnes asked, sounding weirdly excited. “I mean, no pain at all, right?”

Mike resisted the urge to roll his eyes. That condition was rare — in fact, he’d bet that he’d never even met a doctor who’d treated someone with it — and, living in LA, there was a much easier explanation.

He knelt down next to Jamie, keeping his eye trained on Barnes.

“Horses, not zebras,” Mike reminded him. “Jamie, would you mind breathing out for me?”

“Hey, whatever,” he said, shrugged and proceeded to do exactly that. Mike breathed in — and then coughed.

“Occam’s razor,” he surmised, throwing a hand up, feeling a little light-headed. “Simplest answer is usually right. Jamie, did you smoke any weed before coming here?”

Jamie laughed.

“Oh, dude! Yeah, I did. I hate hospitals. Plus — like, I really got banged up. It hurt, so I smoked. It’s not like it’s illegal.”

Mike tilted his head.

“And how much did it hurt _then_ on the same scale that you answered earlier?”

“Uh, maybe seven?”

Barnes exhaled. It sounded like a tiny sigh.

“Right,” he summarised, saving face. “Thank you. Definitely a yellow, then.”

 _Any time,_ Mike wanted to say, but, to be honest, he would have preferred dealing with weed breath _after_ the coffee-that-never-was. He patted Barnes on the shoulder instead and left.

Well, attempted to.

He nearly walked into the body of a doctor talking to a different nurse — Kate, who’d started around the same time Mike had, three years ago. Her eyes lit up in recognition as Mike made to walk past them both; they were stood in the middle of the room, for God’s sake. Her hand reached out, grabbing his forearm.

Mike turned around to see Edward Cullen’s dad.

The first thing that he thought was _guh._

The second thing that struck him, other than Mr. — well, he supposed, Dr. — Cullen’s overall appearance was the fact that said appearance hadn’t changed at all since Mike had been a teenager in Forks. Granted, he hadn’t really seen Cullen around all that much back then — Mike and him had both been invited to the wedding, but that had been ages ago.

Seven or eight _years_ , maybe.

Dr. Cullen did _not_ look nearly a decade older.

He looked Mike’s age, if anything. It was a bit unnerving, and Mike found himself scanning his face for any sign of age — crow’s feet, wrinkles, a hint of grey about the temples.

Nothing. Nada.

“— is Mike,” Kate had been saying. _Introductions, right_. “Mike, this is Dr. Carlisle Cullen. He’s just moved up here from near Seattle. That’s right, right?”

“That’s correct,” Cullen said. Before Mike could say _it’s fine, we know each other, he was my main doctor when I was a teenager,_ he’d stuck out his hand. “Call me Carlisle. It’s nice to meet you.”

Confused, Mike took his hand.

He immediately wished he hadn’t. Carlisle had really bad circulation.

Then he looked at his face — not at the imaginary age lines, but at the whole package.

No hint of recognition. None at all. He was blank. Polite, but completely and utterly blank.

“Nice to meet you too,” Mike said, hoping his voice wouldn’t sound weird. Sure, he’d known that he’d be the one to be forgotten, but experiencing it was a different animal altogether. He’d been one of Bella’s best friends. Okay, well, maybe not _best_ , but —

Carlisle arched his perfect eyebrows.

“So, how are you enjoying LA?”

Mike swallowed. “I’m… sorry?”

Kate grinned. “Oh, I love this,” she divulged. “Carlisle’s got a whole _Sherlock Holmes_ routine. Tell me, was it his shoes? Ooh, his hairstyle?”

Vaguely offended, Mike touched his hair.

Carlisle gave her a serene smile. “His accent.”

“I’ve been living here for the past seven years,” Mike confirmed. “Moved here for school, stayed despite the rent. I’d have thought it would’ve disappeared by now.”

“Lucky guess, then,” Carlisle said, still as eerily calm. His voice was quiet, but it seemed like it cut through all of the general screaming in the ER anyway. “You’ve still got your roommates to share the prices with, though.”

God, that was creepy.

“How did you _know_ that?”

“Let’s just say I’ve known a lot of people over the years and leave it at that,” Carlisle said, as if he were a magician revealing a secret, “shall we?”

The question was punctuated by Carlisle popping out his elbow; Mike was unsure if he were supposed to link his arm through until Kate herself did, giggling. His wedding band glinted in the overhead lights as they walked away together, presumably to set Carlisle up on the Emergency Room’s system.

Mike watched them go, mouth downturned. He crossed his arms, even as his pager went off.

 _Nine hours,_ he thought, _nine more hours._

* * *

“Do you remember the Cullens from high school?”

Eric’s eyebrows, lit by his laptop screen, scrunched together. He paused, and then continued to type.

“Yeah, of course. Why?”

Mike opened the refrigerator, looking for a cold one. He’d decided not to head to the local bar that he usually went to; while he’d wanted to get drunk, he’d also not wanted to see Jessica behind the bar, morose. He’d hit the hay pretty much immediately after the end of his shift. Luckily, he had today off to drink — and think.

You didn’t go to the bar in the middle of the day either, that was for sure.

Mike found a bottle near the back simply labelled _Beer._ Ah, local discount stores for the win _._

He popped the cap and made his way over to the couch, where Eric was sat, and flopped down. “I saw their dad today.”

Eric’s typing stalled again.

He was some kind of software engineer. He’d explained it to Mike multiple times, but his ears had turned off somewhere around _front end_ and _back end_ and _full stack_ and _short stack._ Mike wasn’t even sure if that last one was real.

“Seriously?”

Mike nodded, putting the bottle to his lips.

“Huh,” Eric said. He tilted his laptop screen so he could see Mike better. “Is he —”

“Did not recognise me at all,” Mike interrupted. “Plus, he’s literally not aged. Do you think —”

“Probably plastic surgery,” Eric agreed. “You remember how much the Cullens cared about their looks back then. They went on all those holidays — remember that rumour that they were just going to get surgery and had to recover from it?”

“Jessica’s rumour,” Mike said. “Plus, weren’t they Mormon or something?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Just sort of… assumed.” Mike paused, took a drink. “The khaki situation.”

“Ah,” Eric said, and went back to typing. “So they’re all in LA, now? Hey — maybe we could catch up with Bella, you know?”

“I —” Mike stalled, thinking about Carlisle. “Well, I only saw his dad, but — yeah, it’s a possibility. I think Bella got a new phone, though. Ever since she married Edward Cullen it’s been radio silence from her.”

Eric sighed.

“ _Has_ it been radio silence, or have you just not texted her since then? It’s an important distinction, Mike.”

“No, it’s _definitely_ her,” Mike said. “I mean, remember that time she went mute for like four months? Trust me, I texted her.”

“You _texted_ her, huh?”

A beat, and then —

“Not like _that_ , Eric.”

“What was I supposed to think? She’s married! You were mad about it!”

“I — she —” Mike threw up his free hand. “Man, I hate you.”

“Well, stay hating,” Eric said, as a door behind them creaked open. “ _Hey,_ Jess.”

Mike turned his head. Sure enough, there was Jessica: dressed in her ‘unemployment pyjamas’ and apparently not bartending. She’d found a job at McCoy’s, their local, after the firm she’d been working at for the past few months had decided to downsize.

Well, _they’d_ called it downsizing. Jessica called it —

“— Stop looking at me like I got _fired_ from the job I spent seventy-thousand dollars on a law degree for,” she said, heading into the kitchen. Eric very quickly hid his face. “Oh, wait. I did. Hi, Mike.”

“Jessica,” Mike said, and then paused. Ever since she’d lost her position at Ellis Thatcher Gray, the three flatmates — Eric, himself and a currently-absent-and-taking-photos-for-her-future-Pulitzer-Prize-Award Angela — had been walking on eggshells around her. “Why, uh… why aren’t you bartending?”

“Flexible hours,” Jessica replied, flippantly. She emerged from the kitchen with a plate of reheated pizza and turned on the TV. _Real Housewives._ Great. “Are you getting sad drunk, Michael? Were you doing it here so I wouldn’t see?”

“I’m not a sad drunk,” Mike defended, though he didn’t really know why he was doing that. Sad drunks were normal. There was lots to be sad about. “I’m a fun drunk.”

“You’re a sad drunk,” Eric said.

Mike flipped him off.

“Turn over the channel, Jess,” he said. “There’s a game on.”

Jessica, ignoring him, flipped her hair behind her shoulder as she took a bite of the slice in her hand. “What are we talking about, anyway?”

“The Cullens,” Eric said, cheerfully, taking no notice of Mike dragging his finger across his throat. “Mike saw their dad today.”

Mike, giving in, nodded. “He’s working with me at the hospital.”

Eric’s head turned.

“He’s working with you at the hospital? You left out that bit. That’s an important bit.”

“The guy is a doctor,” Mike said, slowly. “I work with doctors. Where else would I have seen him?”

“I don’t know, the beach? He could _surf!”_

Jessica’s eyebrows had raised in such a way that told Mike she was doing her best to look uninterested. “God, is Bella here, too?”

Mike crossed his arms.

“I don’t know. And what’s with the ‘ _God’?_ We were friends with her, Jess.”

“Yeah, and we were friends with Lauren Mallory in the eighth grade,” Jessica replied. “Face it, Mike. She saw us as cushions. As soon as she saw the Cullens we were, like, second best to her. Like the gum on your shoe.”

Mike spluttered. “You went shopping with her all the time!”

“Because, Mike, in high school, Angela dressed like a librarian who’d just been introduced to Old Navy and couldn’t tell the difference between Versace and viscose.” Jessica tilted her head back and sighed. “It would be nice to talk to her again, though. She basically went —”

“— Radio silent,” Mike finished for her. “That’s what _I_ said.”

“I was going to say _Gone Girl,_ but that works too,” Jessica said. “…God, does that mean we’re all based out here now?”

Mike frowned thoughtfully.

 _He’d_ moved away from Forks for college and never really came back. _Eric_ had spent a few years in San Francisco, having dropped out of college to launch a start-up and had ended up rooming with Mike once the stress of Silicon Valley had gotten too much for him — and once he’d realised he could basically work anywhere, given an Internet connection. _Angela_ had dumped her suitcase in the then-spare room just before she’d jetted off to Washington D.C. for the newspaper she worked for as a photojournalist and never _really_ left. And _Jessica_ had decided it wasn’t fair that they were all living together without her.

That, and she’d had a job offer.

At first, Mike had thought it was going to be awkward having her in the apartment. They’d tried the long-distance thing after high school — after Bella’s wedding — but it had quickly fizzled out once Jessica had realised that she’d only had a ‘crush’ on Mike because Mike was the ‘safe’ option: the _male_ option.

It _had_ been awkward, hearing that, and they’d definitely given each other some space afterwards. But when Jessica has moved in, he’d found himself realising that he’d genuinely enjoyed having Jessica as a friend — just a friend — in high school. He was lucky to have her now. And Eric, and Angela, and…

…And now Bella and Edward too, apparently. And the rest of the Cullen family, _including_ Carlisle, even if he didn’t remember Mike.

At all.

“Weird,” Eric said, sounding as if he’d just been on the same mental journey as Mike had been. “Maybe there’s something to be said about that.”

Jessica chewed thoughtfully.

“Like what?”

Eric shrugged.

“ _L.A._ Push, baby,” he said, and yelped as Jessica threw a cushion at him. Mike grinned behind his beer.

* * *

On his next shift at the hospital — two days later — Mike found himself in the same room as Carlisle again.

He’d caught glimpses of the other man, flitting here, there and everywhere, over the past few hours. Mike had been fiddling with his pager when it had gone off; he’d sworn, dropping it to the floor, and so he’d been shot a death glare from the older woman sitting next to him. When he’d picked it up, he’d seen the room number and the doctor attached and resisted the urge to say the same word again.

So Mike had trudged down to the ass-end of the emergency department and slipped through the door, only to see Carlisle sat at the computer with a frown on his face. He spun around in his chair to face Mike, plastering a smile on.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Carlisle threw up a hand. Somehow, it still looked graceful.

“This system,” he said, at length. “It’s different from the one I used in Washington. I thought I’d get it sorted before I started my shift, but it’s just now that I’ve been able to sit down and register my account.”

“The two o’clock lull,” Mike said, sitting down on the — empty — patient bed. He nodded sagely. “It won’t last long, trust me. So… not to be rude, but why did you page _me?”_

Carlisle shrugged.

“Kate said, after you left, if I had any problems here I should talk to you. Now that I think about it, though… Perhaps IT wasn’t what she meant?”

“Not even remotely,” Mike grinned. “But I can take a look if you want.”

“Go ahead,” Carlisle said. He wheeled out of the way. “Here.”

Mike rose from the bed and crossed over, leaning down to peer at the screen.

“Ah, there’s your problem. See that? That’s a pass number, not a pass _word._ Like your PIN. Eight numbers, no letters.”

“Oh,” Carlisle said. “And I get to set it?”

Mike pointed at one of the boxes.

“Yeah, just there. Also, I’m obligated to tell you to not enter anything too sensitive or easily guessed. Like your birthday, or any of your kids.” _Or adopted kids._

“Thanks,” he said, typing a very quick string in. _05161640\. Definitely not a birth date,_ Mike thought. “I’m glad I paged you anyway, then.”

“Any time,” Mike said, pulling back. His neck had basically been in Carlisle’s face. “Just don’t ask me to do any more computer stuff. I’m good with a scalpel.”

“I’ll remember that,” Carlisle said, turning back to the computer.

Mike walked back to the door.

Then he paused, thinking. Carlisle clearly hadn’t been in town long — hadn’t been at the hospital long, either, seeing as though his account hadn’t even been set up yet.

An olive branch, then. _Screw it._

“We’re going for drinks,” he threw out. “Me, a couple of the other doctors and nurses from the department and a bunch of people from midwifery. Do you, uh, do you want to come?”

Carlisle cleared his throat.

“Well,” he said, and then paused, thinking. “Thank you for asking, but — my wife —”

“Bring her along, then,” Mike said. _Come_ on, _olive branch_. “The more the merrier. Or don’t. We’ll be at McCoy’s after-shift; it’s a little place a couple of blocks from here. Think about it?”

“…I will,” Carlisle said. There was an odd tone colouring his voice. “Thank you.”

“Like I said,” Mike said, pushing off from the door frame, “any time.”

* * *

McCoy’s was the bar that Jessica worked at.

Mike wasn’t going to lie; half of the appeal of going there was sitting and letting one of his best friends tell him stories about the idiots that had come in during her day of work. She always had way better stories than Mike himself: patient confidentiality often ruined his own.

 _You just had to be there_ seemed to be Mike’s catchphrase, nowadays.

The other part of the appeal was the fact that it just felt like… well, as depressingly millennial-alcoholic as it sounded, _home_. The perpetual damp in the air smelled like the rain in Forks. There was a chill running through the windows. The people that the bar seemed to attract were hard cut, salt-of-the-earth people. They didn’t talk to Mike. And Mike did _not_ talk to them.

In short, it was a perfect drinking place to meet a bunch of people.

What got Mike the most about LA was how fake everybody was. Everyone seemed to be shiny. Like hard plastic.

Not that there weren’t people like that in Forks — the Mallorys sprung to mind, along with the Cullens — but though people blurred together everywhere, it was in LA that people came to be special, to be remembered.

And Mike was not a memorable person. Not if Carlisle Cullen was to be believed. He’d known this. So why was it _affecting_ him this much?

Jessica waved him over with her dishcloth. Not many of his colleagues had arrived yet; there was a cluster of the guys sat in a booth, but they gave him a thumbs up when he moved to her so Mike assumed he was allowed to take a minute.

“How was your day?”

“You know,” Mike said, adjusting himself on the barstool, “you just had to be there.”

Jessica rolled her eyes, tapping her nose. She leant forward. “Well, aren’t you going to ask _me_ how my day was _?”_

“Jess Stanley,” Mike gushed, resting his face on his fist, “how _was_ your day?”

Jessica grinned.

“I’m _so_ glad you asked,” she said, setting her towel down. “Had to serve a guy today who ordered the Seven Seas. I do _not_ envy his liver. Or the guy that had to clean the bathroom after him, for that matter.”

Mike winced. The _Seven Seas_ was a speciality drink: made up of the first seven things the bartender saw after the order.

“Did he at least —”

“Too drunk to tip, not too drunk to call an Uber,” Jessica replied, shortly. “God, sometimes you wonder whether anyone has worked in a restaurant at all. They do know we survive off of that jar, right?”

Mike decided not to bring up the fact that _he’d_ worked retail throughout high school and college instead of waitressing. He also decided not to bring up the hefty severance pay that Ellis Thatcher Gray had given her after it had dissolved.

“They’ve got to.”

“Ugh, right, I mean, you can _totally_ tell,” Jessica said. She crossed her arms. Then her eyes caught something behind Mike’s shoulder and she boggled. “Oh, my god, you weren’t lying about Carlisle.”

Mike turned in his seat, wobbling a little on the bar stool.

Sure enough, there he was — Carlisle Cullen, looking completely out of place next to a burly man necking an in-house brew, sans-wife after all. He waved at him, and Carlisle waved back, a bland smile washing over his face.

Then his eyes darted to the left and a real grin broke out.

Mike tilted his head, confused at the sudden change. And then he realised just who, exactly, was standing over his shoulder. _Great —_

 _“_ — Jessica _Stanley?”_ Carlisle said, all-but-rushing up to the bar. “Is that really you?”

Jessica gaped, looking between Mike — who was trying to drown himself in his hands — and Carlisle.

“Sure,” she answered, hesitantly. “Yeah… Hi, uh, _Edward’s dad._ I didn’t know you were, uh, in Los Angeles.” _Great. Yeah,_ Mike thought. _Believable. “_ How are you?”

 _“_ Just great,” Carlisle said, slapping his hand on the table. “Gosh, what a coincidence! How long has it been — the wedding, right?”

“The wedding!” Jessica pointed at him, as if they were having an in-joke. Mike somehow felt like said joke was, possibly, him. “It was beautiful. _So_ pretty. So, yeah, it must have been… years ago. Time sure flies, huh?”

Carlisle grinned.

“Bella invited all of her friends, I remember that much,” he said. “Are you still in contact with the group, as it were?”

Jessica’s eyes flickered between Mike and Carlisle.

“About that: funny thing, actually. Mike —”

Carlisle turned, his face a perfect picture.

“Oh, I forgot! Mike, I know Jessica from the last place I lived; Jessica, Mike works with me at the hospital. It’s a small world. I can’t believe you guys _know_ each other already. It’s my two worlds… _colliding_.”

 _Tell me about it,_ Mike thought. He nodded, though it felt like his head was bobbing in water like a rubber duck.

“Where was that, again? Washington?”

“Small town called Forks,” Carlisle said. “It’s not well known, so I’ll forgive you if you don’t know where exactly it is. And you’re not from around here, either, I recall.”

“Washington, too, if you can believe it,” Mike managed. “Like you said, it’s a small world. You know what? I think I might —” he slid off of the bar stool — “you know, just leave you two to catch up for a minute.”

Jessica’s face fell.

“ _Mike_ —”

“— No, it’s okay!” Mike said, fumbling with the straps on his bag. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I just — I gotta head. To the… head. The _restroom_. It’s all totally kosher.” He slung it over his shoulder, walking away. “I’ll be back. Be good, you two!”

 _Be good, you two. Jesus._ As Mike locked himself into the bathroom — thankfully not occupied — he caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror and sighed.

Then he exhaled again, and again, and _again_ until he was sure that feeling that made his stomach turn over at the thought that Carlisle had recognised Jessica and proceeded not to make the obvious connection there was expelled.

He closed his eyes and leant against the sink, pressing a curled fist to his forehead. If it wasn’t exhaled, it was now pushed out, pressed down between his brows to the back of his brain. At least Mike could take refuge in that, even if it wasn’t something he was taught in college — or something that was actually true.

Mike’s fist vibrated _._

His eyes flew open in shock and he brought his fist down to eye level, nearly blinding himself from the sudden light of the touch screen. His _phone_. He realised that he must’ve been holding it before he went into the bathroom. Mike vaguely remembered playing a round of Solitaire whilst he was waiting for Jessica to get off of her break. And losing.

He unlocked it, scrolling through the contacts and pressing a particular name down. Mike held the phone to his ear and waited silently.

_Click._

“There’s something stupid going on with me,” Mike said, quickly. “I think it’s in my brain.”

“ _It’s called a thought, Michael,”_ Angela replied, sounding as if she were smiling. “ _I’m at the airport and my flight leaves in three hours, so I’ve definitely got some time to kill. What’s up?”_

“God,” Mike said, reflexively, “I forgot you were coming home tonight. Sorry. I just… _really_ needed to talk to you.”

“ _This sounds serious.”_

“The funny thing is, it isn’t,” Mike said. “Did Eric or Angela mention anything about Carlisle Cullen the last time you talked to them?”

“ _Weirdly enough, yeah,”_ Angela said. “ _He’s in town, right?”_

 _“_ He’s working with me,” Mike clarified. “He’s working in the ER with me, and he didn’t recognise me, and now we’re at Jessica’s bar — and do you know who he remembered? Jessica.”

“ _Oh,”_ Angela said, and that was it for a moment. “ _Well, Jessica and Bella did hang out a lot in high school.”_

“So did all of us,” Mike pointed out. “And Jessica essentially said that Bella was Public Enemy number one yesterday. I… don’t know if that changes anything or not, actually,” he added. “I think Jessica hated us _all_ in high school.”

“ _So, what I’m hearing is,”_ Angela summarised, “ _you don’t like the fact that Carlisle forgot who you were and remembered Jessica. And you have no reason for it except that it hurts your feelings.”_

Mike shrugged.

“…Basically, yeah. That’s bad, I know.”

“ _It’s valid,”_ Angela said. “ _It’s stupid, but it’s valid. Are you going to tell Carlisle that you’re actually Mike Newton from Forks?”_

Mike rubbed his eyes, feeling tired.

“I don’t know,” he said, truthfully. “I mean, Mike Newton from Forks was going nowhere. He was going to take over Olympic Outfitters and die surrounded by skis and surf gear and tracksuits. I don’t know if I could… _take_ him remembering.”

“ _Right. I think that’s the melodrama talking,”_ Angela said. “ _You are who you are, Mike, and you can’t change that. It’s not your fault Carlisle Cullen doesn’t remember you. You met him at graduation and you met him at the wedding and, disregarding any hospital visits, those are the only times you two have interacted until now. Do_ you _remember all your patients?”_

 _“_ Not without their file,” Mike conceded. “Why do you have to be right all the time?”

“ _Somebody in our apartment has to be,”_ Angela answered. “ _So, what are you going to do?”_

Mike squared his shoulders. “I’m going to go out there. I’m going to go out there, and I’m going to introduce myself. Properly.”

“ _Okay,”_ Angela said, and he could tell that she was smiling. “ _I’ll talk to you when I see you in the morning. Good luck, right?”_

The call screen dimmed as Mike took it away from his ear; the red end-call button fizzled out — he figured that Angela must have been the one to press it on her end.

 _Good,_ he thought, as he stuffed it in his pocket. All that talk about going out and facing Carlisle and he was just as ready to pack it all in and talk to Angela for the whole night.

Well, at least, until she got on her flight.

Mike slid the lock back open and shouldered his way through the door, blinking as Barnes rushed past him, his mouth covered by his hand. Kate was laughing like a hyena, and Carlisle…

…Carlisle was _not_ sitting at the bar. Or able to be seen anywhere else for that matter.

As Mike looked around him, he realised that the doctor had — seemingly — disappeared. He trudged back forward to where Jessica had been standing; she’d been replaced by a burly dude with a tattoo of a snake eating its own tail curled around his bicep: McCoy, the owner of the bar.

Jessica had told him once that it had something to do with a myth, or something like that — Mike had instantly forgotten. It didn’t matter, anyway. Before Mike could get a word out — possibly _where_ , given his current confusion — McCoy had pointed behind him, and Mike had turned. There she was: Jessica, her bag in her hand — and still no Carlisle. _Well, one out of two ain’t bad._

 _“_ Carlisle went home,” she explained, passing the handbag to Mike. He slung it over his shoulder as they walked out onto the street. “Said something about his wife, and that he hoped that you were okay in there.”

Mike frowned. It seemed like Carlisle’s go-to excuse was his wife. If Mike ever got married, he was so taking advantage of that concept.

“What do you mean, _okay in there?_ ”

Jessica gave him a perfectly raised eyebrow.

“You ducked into the bathroom and you didn’t come out for, like, ten minutes. I had to tell him some bogus story about your ex-boyfriend.”

“Okay,” Mike said, slowly. “ _Which_ fictional ex-boyfriend is this? Just so we’re clear.”

“The one you experimented with in college that looks exactly like him,” she clarified. Mike made a face. “What? It’s a good story. You, like, got spooked.”

“Like a horse,” Mike said. “How were you ever a lawyer, again?”

“It’s a mystery,” Jessica said. She sighed as they crossed the road. “Listen. That was a _situation_ in there. Like, actual DEFCON 7.”

“Seriously, don’t,” Mike huffed. “It _was_ kind of funny, though. Just — looking back.”

Jessica laughed.

“Oh, my god, it was _hilarious_. You know he invited me for dinner, right?”

“Wait, are you being serious with me right now?”

“I wouldn’t joke,” Jessica replied. “Yeah, seriously. The next time I’m in Forks. Apparently, they still own the property there — they go back every holiday, mostly so that Bella can see her dad.”

Mike grinned.

“Hey, you’ll be intruding on their family dinner! God, what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on _that_ wall.”

“Well,” Jessica said, and then stopped as they got to her car. Mike looked at her quizzically. “You could go _with_ me, if you wanted. Be my date.”

“Right. Quick reminder that you like _girls_ , Jess,” Mike replied, standing next to the passenger door. “Plus, I don’t even _know_ the next time I’m going back to Forks. If ever.”

“I _am_ bisexual,” Jessica pointed out. She unlocked the car. “It’s just that men are disappointing, most of the time. And, uh, yeah, you are, dumbass.”

Mike climbed into the seat and waited until Jessica had started the engine. “Okay, I’m lost.”

Jessica nodded. “Well, you’re in my car. If that helps.”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Mike said. “I meant, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Me, going back to Forks? _Soon?_ I haven’t been there in years. The closest I’ve come to it is when I’ve had to go through the airport in Port Angeles.”

Jessica frowned.

“I — _Oh_ ,” she said, in dawning comprehension. She ran a hand over her face. “I swear, Eric, Angela and I have been talking about this for months. You were always on shift. Ugh, I thought Eric had _told_ you about it. I _told_ Eric to tell you about it.”

“It’s okay,” Mike said, even though it kind of _wasn’t_ and it really had just been sprung on him. “I mean, I’m glad I’m hearing about it now and not the night we’re leaving, though. And, _Eric_. A wise woman once told me that men are disappointing, most of the time.”

“She sounds right,” Jessica said. “Is that wise as in old or wise as in knowledgeable?”

“You _are_ a couple of months older than me,” Mike said. “Take it how you will.”

“As a compliment, against my better judgement,” Jessica said. She reversed out of the parking space. “Right. We’re leaving on Friday; Angela booked a B&B for all of us. It’s, uh, four single beds in a house where there’s _probably_ been a murder, knowing Forks. It’ll be fun.”

Mike tilted his head as they drove. “Are we going to go surfing?”

“You can go surfing _here_. It’s, like, the perfect place.”

“But the waves are different.”

“Well, then, go _surfing_ ,” Jessica replied, shortly. “This holiday is about going back to our roots. If _you_ want to spend the entire week peeling off a wetsuit before you go to bed, be my guest, Michael. I’m going to enjoy myself doing what _I_ love.”

“Yeah, at dinner with the Cullens,” Mike shot back. “…So, we’re going for a week, huh?”

Jessica nodded, not dignifying his previous comment with a response.

“I think you should tell your mom you’re going.”

Mike shut his eyes and rested his head against the car window.

“I don’t want to talk about this. This is not something I want to talk about.”

“Well, I think —”

“She kicked me out, Jess,” Mike interrupted. “My dad died during spring break and I came back early to grieve with her. And I found all my stuff outside. She didn’t even answer the door. Do you know how much that hurt? Do you?”

“ _Mike_ —”

“I’m not calling her. There’s a reason I don’t talk to her anymore. She doesn’t want to be reminded of Dad? Fine — she doesn’t have to be. So I don’t want to be reminded of her either.”

“You’ll see her,” Jessica said, after a moment. “You’ll end up seeing her there.”

“Then she can start the conversation,” Mike said, flatly. “She’s the one that ended it.”

Jessica gave him a grave look, but she turned on the radio and left it at that.

There was a lump in Mike’s throat; he didn’t want to think about which problem had put it there, or if he’d only just noticed it. He rested his head against the window again and tried to put the night out of his mind.

… _Damn it._

* * *

Mike had three shifts at the hospital left in the week before he was to fly out to Forks with his friends.

On the first day, he’d ended up going into surgery with Carlisle; he’d spent the entire day dodging pitying looks from the man — apparently, the impression that Jessica had made him give as a broken-hearted tragic nurse stuck — and trying to tell him who he really was.

It didn’t go so well in that he wasn’t able to actually do it.

Day two went much better, all things considered.

Then Mike made the mistake of sitting at a table with some of the guys from midwifery and, as such, ended up being on the receiving end of advice from a nurse he’d never talked to before about how he’d “get one someday”. Apparently, his not-staring at Carlisle’s back in the cafeteria had been way too obvious. Go figure.

Mike usually got to work by car. That meant that he had to deal with the idiots on the road every day. So, when, on the morning of the third shift — early morning, like, _way_ too early — he was cut off from entering the hospital’s parking lot by a massive, obnoxious Volvo, he wasn’t at all surprised. A little pissed _off_ , sure, but not surprised.

It was a regular occurrence in LA; everybody had to be somewhere, and they all had to be there the same time as Mike.

He’d ended up driving around the parking lot for a couple of minutes, looking for a space.

That’s when Mike saw the Volvo again; its owner was letting the person in the passenger seat out, and another person was climbing out of the back seat on the other side. A family.

He didn’t _mean_ to look, but that was the same exact moment that somebody decided to reverse out, cutting him off — again.

Something was scratching at his memory. The way the guy held his — wife’s? — hand as she hopped out of the car. How effortless it all looked. The height of her heels; the colour of his hair, her hair. The way the other woman seemed like a mix of them both and the way they all looked like they were made in the same batch. Statues, stripped of paint. Xerox copies.

Weirdly, it reminded Mike of the Cullens.

They all looked different, reportedly had different personalities, were interested in different things, but the fact that they were adopted didn’t help the unsettling _sameness_ that Mike had felt when he’d seen them all together at lunch.

At the time, he’d chalked it up to jealousy. Except he _hadn’t_ , really, because Mike had not been self-aware enough to do that until college.

Still. Mike _had_ briefly entertained the thought of the rest of the Cullens being in LA with Eric, but —

— The guy’s head whipped around, as if he’d heard Mike’s thoughts.

Mike’s hands stiffened around the steering wheel, knuckles going white, even before he recognised him. There was something about it all, way up in the air; some kind of fear, primal fear, sending him into overdrive.

Edward Cullen looked back at him, expression unreadable. Then, with his hand on the small of the woman’s back, he gestured to the rest of the lot.

Mike’s attention snapped back to his front. The person had reversed out, leaving a gap in the otherwise-seemingly full parking lot.

Giving Edward Cullen — _Edward Cullen,_ in Los Angeles — a wave to thank him, Mike took the opportunity to drive straight past the empty space and right out of the parking lot to go somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Maybe it was irrational — okay, it _definitely_ was irrational — but Mike hadn’t registered that until he had already pulled onto a nearby street. He also hadn’t recognised the woman at the back of the car — presumably the latest Cullen adoptee — but Mike was fairly sure that _Bella_ had been the one in the passenger seat.

She’d changed, for sure; gone were the plaid shirts and old jeans and beanies and army jackets and weird, long khaki skirts and white button ups and the rest of the Bella ensemble Mike was embarrassed to say that he’d basically memorised when he’d had a crush on her in high school. Bella looked like she shopped expensive, shopped for _fashion_ instead of just for things that matched and lasted, like the endless trips that Jessica had brought her on had _done_ something, in the end.

It _had_ been eight years, Mike reminded himself.

People changed in eight years. They grow up and they move away and they have a crisis in their car before they go into work about seeing people that they haven’t seen in nearly a decade and being fundamentally unnerved when said people don’t match the memories that they have of them.

But that was the thing, though. Mike had changed. Bella had changed. Edward hadn’t; _Carlisle_ hadn’t. It was jarring, to say the least.

…At least it answered whether or not it had just been Carlisle and his wife that had moved to Los Angeles, Mike thought, and started his car again. He didn’t want to get carjacked while at work. Hopefully, the parking space was still open.

* * *

“Do you think that Bella and I would have gotten together if we both stayed in Forks?”

“You need to go on more dates. Also, no.”

Mike eyed his tumbler of rosé thoughtfully. “Okay, what if Edward hadn’t been there in the first place?”

Angela rolled her eyes. “No. Just pick a movie. Look, _Crosshairs_. _Face Punch._ Stop scrolling and start something before I turn the TV off, Mike. I have the remote.”

“I’m so scared,” Mike said, sprawling out on the couch. “I don’t even know why I’m looking at action movies. I don’t even _like_ action movies. Ooh, _Marley and Me.”_

 _“_ We are not watching _Marley and Me._ You’ll cry.”

“I won’t cry.”

“You cried last time.”

“Yeah, but this time I know the ending,” Mike said. “What are you looking at, anyway?”

Angela looked up from her phone. The white of the web page that she was looking at bounced off of the lens in her glasses. “Other apartments.”

“Traitor,” Mike said, without any real malice. “We did go on a few dates. Bella and me,” he added. “We saw a movie together.”

Angela laughed. “Oh, was that the date that had that kid sitting in on as well? Romantic, Mike.”

Mike considered. “It was also the date that ended up with me taking the next week off at school because I got a stomach bug. I basically spent the entire last third of the flick in the bathroom. Not even the worst date I’ve been on.”

“I can see why you’re so nostalgic over it,” Angela said. “Worst date — Ben, right?”

Mike shuddered. Ben Cheney, another graduate of Forks High, had asked him out to what ended up being helping him shop for an outfit for another date. “Can we not?”

“You’re the one who brought it up,” Angela pointed out. “You’re the one who picked the romcom, too.”

“ _Marley and_ _Me_ is not a romcom,” Mike defended, but it sounded weak, even to his ears. “It’s a comedy-drama. With dogs. And Owen Wilson.”

“And Jennifer Aniston.”

“And Jennifer Aniston,” Mike added, “who I have definitely not seen at Whole Foods buying olive oil. Where’s Eric, anyway?”

“Skyping with the underlings,” Angela said, which really meant that Eric was on a video call with his second-in-command in Silicon Valley. “Too busy for _Marley and Me_ and Bella Swan.”

“And Jennifer Aniston,” Mike said. “Bella Cullen, anyway.”

“…What?”

“Well, she got married, didn’t she? She’s Bella _Cullen_.”

Angela squinted at him, disappointed. “She’s a twenty-first century woman, Michael. Maybe she kept her last name. Maybe they’re divorced, because they got married at eighteen and nothing good happens when you’re eighteen.”

“Oh, they are _not_ divorced,” Mike said. His eyes widened. “Wait, I mean —”

“I know what you mean,” Angela said, finally, even though she couldn’t possibly have known about Mike _Tokyo Drift-_ ing his way out of the hospital parking lot. “You don’t think I’ve thought about Bella Swan since I left Forks? I had a useless, big, fat lesbian crush on her. And Jess,” she added.

“Same,” said Mike, because it was true. “Except I actually scored dates with them both, so I win.”

“No,” said Angela, “you threw up during half of a movie with one and had a semi-serious, year-long relationship with the other before she dumped you for a girl in her sorority. It’s not a game. If it were, _I’d_ be winning. You know, seeing as though I’m the only one out of both of us that is currently — what did you say, again? — _scoring dates_.”

“Okay, first: low blow, Weber,” Mike said, affecting hurt. “I have a very busy work schedule that involves a lot of coffee and a really bad sleep schedule that does not lend time for bad dates. And bringing Cordelia up always wins the argument because you two are weirdly cute and perfect for each other and it always makes it too hard to argue with you for me, so that’s a shitty move.”

Angela shrugged, unrepentant. Cordelia was her girlfriend, a Connecticut grad student that she’d met while working as a photographer for a campaign trail two years ago. Angela got around the long-distance thing by mostly taking her work in New Haven.

She’d had visited at Christmas; Mike had gotten her for Secret Santa but was persuaded by Angela at the last minute to swap with her because she was convinced that Cordelia had gotten her based on her facial expression. She hadn’t; she’d gotten Mike instead.

Mike had received a new year planner, which had been thoughtful. Eric, Angela’s original pick, had been given the present that Mike had gotten for Cordelia— bubble bath. Eric had cried and hugged him to say thank you.

“What are you packing for Forks?”

Angela shrugged. “I’m not unpacking. I’m just going to take out the clothes that I wore in DC and put some clean ones in. Similar climates.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”

“Well, they both have rain. Similar _weather_ , then.”

“Everywhere has rain.”

Angela typed something out on her phone keyboard. “According to Google, the Atacama Desert has no rain.”

Mike shook his head. “Well, that doesn’t count. It’s a desert.”

She scoffed. “Deserts are still places, Mike.”

“Yeah, well, name _one_.”

“The Atacama, for starters,” Angela said. “Also, Los Angeles. Where we live.”

“…Lucky guess,” said Mike.

“Well, I try.”

* * *

Mike ended up sitting next to Eric on the flight.

Even if he _had_ apologised to Jessica about their argument the other night — which he hadn’t — Mike was banned from sitting next to her on long journeys anyway.

The long and short of it was that Mike tended to sound like a freight train when he took a Xanax. Jessica, before the ban, had apparently frequently considered smothering him in his sleep.

He’d gotten over his flight anxiety since then. It still made sense to stay away, though. Mike wanted to die when he was old and grey, not while he was snoozing away in coach.

The flight was three hours long, and soon Mike found himself and the others touching down into the cold, spring Port Angeles air. Eric had only given him the travel pillow that Mike had bought in the duty free store back when they’d reached the tarmac: he’d stolen it at the beginning of the journey, citing neck-ache from coding the previous night. Mike adjusted the thing around his neck. He was going to wear this thing out of the airport if it killed him.

They made their way into the Baggage Claim area together — Angela and Mike only had hand luggage, but Jessica made up for that with the three suitcases that she brought for herself — and then to the Passenger Pick-Up point, near to the exit of the small airport.

Angela’s parents were putting them up for the three days they were staying in Forks. Her dad was a pastor and moonlighted as the leader of the Boy Scouts troop that Mike had been a part of; her mom had a business owning and maintaining a couple of the Bed-and-Breakfasts that were on the outskirts of town, near La Push.

They all had cutesy names, like _The Happy Giraffe_ — Mike’s personal favourite — or _Back to The Fuchsia_ — a purple-pink retro-themed cottage that Angela’s mom had kept open, just for them. Mike wasn’t going to lie: he’d looked at the listing online, and he was sure he was going to get a migraine. Or, more likely, asbestos.

Angela’s dad was holding up a sign. He began to wave at them madly, almost knocking over Angela’s mom. As they got closer, Mike could read what he’d printed out on the card: ‘ _Weber Party’_ , and, in a smaller font, underneath, ‘ _WELCOME HOME!’._

Angela hopped the fence to where her parents were standing and crushed them both — and _was_ crushed — in a hug. Eric limboed under the metal bar. Jessica walked around it. Mike stalled, reading what Angela’s dad had written between the two lines.

He’d added something, definitely — the hasty blue permanent marker that had been used was on a slant, and had smudged in the middle of ‘ _Sorry’_ and ‘ _Everyone_ _except Mike’._

He frowned in confusion. “I —”

Then Mike shut up, because he’d noticed his own mom, smiling at him, standing on the other side of Angela’s dad.

She was looking well — healthy, even. There were more greys peppered through her strawberry blonde hair, more laughter lines, but it was more soothing than disturbing like with the unaging Cullen family. Her eyes were as kind and blue as they’d been before he’d left for college — and his dad had died.

Mike ducked under the rail and allowed her to appraise him properly. He was taller than her — quite a bit taller — and had been since high school, but it still didn’t feel right, even with her wearing her signature high heels. He felt like he was supposed to crouch down.

His mom put a hand on both of his arms, causing Mike to look up from the floor.

“Jessica called me,” she said, answering his unaired question. “I didn’t know you were going to be in town.”

“I didn’t either, until this week,” Mike admitted. “Hey, Mom.”

His mom rubbed his arms, then poked his neck pillow slightly out-of-place.

“Hey, Wedge. You’re all grown up. Is that your stuff?”

Mike blinked, looking down at his feet. He’d dumped the old duffel bag on the floor when he’d first gotten to the other side of the pick-up area. “Yeah, just hand luggage. I think Angela and her travelling style is rubbing off on me. You don’t have to —”

“— It’s okay, I’ve got it,” she said, slinging the strap over her shoulder. “I own a sports store, Wedge. You’ve got to keep up appearances.”

“Oh,” said Mike. He fumbled for a second, trying to think of what to say. “I was planning on staying with my friends, Mom.” Like _that_ didn’t make him still sound like a teenager.

Mike’s mom’s face dropped.

“Oh,” she echoed him. “I just — I thought it might be nice to have someone else in the house, for a change. You know?”

 _So that was how it was going to go._ Mike slipped out of his mother’s grasp.

“We’re not doing this here, Mom.”

“I didn’t want —” his mother sighed. “Wedge, _please_. You’re taking words out of my mouth. Just let me explain.”

Mike scoffed, shaking his head. “You’ve had nearly a decade to do that.”

“Would you have let me?” she retorted, her tone as sharp as a wire. Mike’s head hung low. “Exactly. Come _home,_ Mike. You can leave if you want to, but give me this.”

Mike bit his tongue instead of biting back. He nodded, his motions tight and braced for something — anything — resembling impact or explosion. He wanted to be able to bury the hatchet, sure, but he still hurt.

 _It_ still hurt.

He followed his mom to her car. It was a newer model than the one she’d had eight years ago, a sports one instead of the hatchback she’d bought whilst Mike was in middle school and kept until he’d gone to college. It looked shiny, like it had just been cleaned.

Mike climbed in the passenger seat and waited for her to get her seatbelt on. “Well?”

“It was a mistake, Wedge.”

“No, a _mistake_ is forgetting your keys and getting yourself locked out of your apartment. Kicking your only son and all his stuff to the curb when his father dies? That’s not a mistake, Mom.”

“What would you call it, then?” his mom shot back. “I regretted it as soon as I realised what I’d done. I was _grieving_.”

“So was I,” Mike said. “I lost my dad. And then I lost you, and it hurt just as much.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she said, tired. “I just don’t, Mike. Please tell me how I can fix this — this _thing_ between us. I hate it. Tell me what you want, Wedge.”

Mike rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hands. He wanted to put his head against the cold window. He wanted to sink his fingernails into the canvas of his bag, but his mom had put it in the trunk.

“An apology,” he said, at last, to the airbag in front of him. “With no excuses. After all this time, that’s what I want, Mom.”

His mom was silent for a moment, thinking it over.

“Okay,” she said, at last. “Okay. I’m sorry, Wedge. I’m sorry.” She rubbed his back as she tried to hug him, but the seatbelt she was wearing made it slightly uncomfortable for the both of them. “I’m sorry.”

Mike leant back to sit in his seat, sniffing. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Mike said, and it was.

Mike’s mom turned the engine over. “I mean, you _did_ have someone to get you through it,” she said.

“…What?”

“Well, _Jessica,”_ she said.

 _“_ Oh,” Mike said. “Well, yeah, but we broke up shortly afterwards, so there is that hiccup.”

“God, really?” his mom shook her head. “That’s terrible timing. Are you with anyone now?”

Mike laughed, his voice still raw. “Okay, I have not missed _this_ part of our relationship. _Mom,”_ he said, in a particularly whiny voice.

His mom smiled, all saccharine. “ _Yes,_ Wedge?”

“Drive,” said Mike. “Please, before I die of embarrassment.”

“Whatever you say, honey.”

* * *

Mike did not expect to be working another shift at Olympic Outfitters.

But there he was — the same uncomfortable polo shirt over his head, the same name tag pinned onto his front and the same whining, waning air con chugging away near the ceiling.

The hits on the radio were new, at least, but he found himself missing the old favourites he’d jammed to as a teenager, wailing away on his air guitar and tapping his feet to _California Girls_ or Christina Aguilera. Anything to keep from braining himself with a nine-iron from the golf section out of boredom.

His mom had asked him to fill in for one of the members of the staff, who had called in sick the night before with mono. Mike had briefly reminisced about getting it himself — Lauren Mallory, eighth grade, under the bleachers — before agreeing. It most definitely was not the best use of his time, nor something that he actually _wanted_ to do, but it seemed appropriate.

They were trying to mend their fences, him and his mom, and maybe this _was_ the best way forward.

That’s what he’d thought before starting the shift; now Mike _knew_ that the asshole customers were still assholes, even when he wasn’t a teenager anymore. At least he got to use his phone on the store floor now — perks of being the owner’s son, Mike guessed, though the reason why that privilege wasn’t available to him at seventeen baffled him.

…It was probably because his parents knew he’d be glued to it instead of actually _working,_ but Mike goofed off anyway, so, still. Baffling.

The bell in the door jingled. Mike looked up.

Charlie Swan gave him a cursory nod and bent down to look at the fishing equipment. A second passed, and then he stood up straight again, turning. “Mike Newton?”

Mike grinned, holding his hand out for the man to shake. “Hey, Chief Swan. Fancy seeing you here!”

“Feel like I should be saying that to you,” Chief Swan said, shaking his head. “And it’s Charlie, now. Retired. I thought you were off being a doctor, or …something like that?”

“RN — a Registered Nurse, actually,” Mike said. “But, yeah, I’ve been in Los Angeles for the past few years. Since I graduated. Sorry, did you say you were retired? I just — I just can’t imagine you not being the Chief.”

“Yeah, they eventually kicked me out,” Chief — _Charlie_ said. “They gave me a cake, so I forgave them. I don’t mind; new blood on the force and all that. Plus, I get to spend some more time with my wife, so…”

“Sounds good.”

“How long are you here for?” Charlie picked up some equipment and brought it over to the counter. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you here in Forks.”

Mike slid behind the register and began to ring through his things. “A few days,” he said. “Then we’ll be back to LA.”

“‘We’?” Charlie tilted his head.

“Yeah, ‘we’,” Mike said. “Uh, me, Angela Weber, Jessica Stanley and Eric Yorkie. We kind of ended up living together out west. Series of happy coincidences, you know?”

“I bet. You all hung out with my Bella in high school, and now you’re _still_ hanging out.”

“…Yeah,” Mike said, unsure what to say next. “D’you, uh, talk to Bella often?”

“Not as often as I’d like,” Charlie said. “Every few weeks. She’s so busy, now, you know? With the kid, the move…”

Mike paused, his fingers hovering above the cash register.

“Bella and Edward have _kids_ ,” he stated. “ _Bella_ and _Edward.”_

 _“A_ kid,” Charlie clarified, opening his wallet. “Seven going on thirty, by all accounts. What do I owe ‘ya?”

“Six dollars-thirty seven,” Mike parroted back, trying not to show on his face that he was reeling from the news. “Cash or credit?”

Charlie produced a card, and soon he was scrawling a signature onto the machine’s receipt.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, giving Mike back the pen. “And the answer is no, they didn’t get married because of that. My Bella’s way more careful than that.”

“I bet,” Mike said, before he realised the connotations. “Uh, what I meant was — enjoy your sale. Uh, bait.” He pushed the brown paper bag to the other man. “Have a nice day. That’s what we say, right?”

Charlie laughed. “Out of practice, huh?”

“A little,” Mike agreed. “But I did manage to work out this old thing again,” he said, rapping the side of the old cash register, “so I think I’m good for my newfound career in retail. Waste of a college degree, but I think I’ll be alright.”

Charlie shook his head as he walked out of the store. Mike chose to believe that it was more in awe than of incredulity.

He leant on the counter, thinking about his own words. _My newfound career in retail._

It was a joke, of course — this shift was killing him, both emotionally and, probably, physically — but it made him think, again, of Mike Newton: Forks Edition, wasting his life away behind a cash register, staring at the same poster that he was, the same peeling print of a surfer on a Los Angeles beach that had been there since he’d been a teenager.

It was as if he could touch him, this imaginary Mike, could almost step into his life. _Had_ stepped into his life. Because there Mike was — doing the exact same thing. They weren’t separate people anymore, Mike and the concept of a person that had kept him away from even _thinking_ about going back to Forks. They were the same.

They had _always_ been the same person.

Mike glanced at the poster of the surfer again. He pulled his phone back out of his jean pocket and began to type.

* * *

Buckled into the passenger seat of Angela’s mom’s minivan, Mike fought down a smile.

He couldn’t remember the last time they’d been to La Push, just the group of them — hadn’t thought, at the time, that that would be the _last_ time. It had to have been years, but it felt like yesterday, not like a decade had passed; Paramore were even playing on the stereo, but Mike knew that that was probably because _Brand New Eyes_ had been stuck in the van’s CD player since 2009.

Mike turned to Angela. “How was the B&B?”

Before she could answer, Eric leant forward and stuck his head in-between their seats. “God-awful,” he said, gleefully. “The TV was hot pink. I think _RuPaul’s Drag Race_ exploded out of it.”

“Fuchsia,” Angela corrected, adjusting her glasses as she focused on the road. “The house is themed around the colour _fuchsia_. Anyway, it wasn’t awful, it was just… eclectic. You know, _quirky_.”

Mike tilted his head. “Okay. Quirky how?”

“Fuzzy pink phone,” Eric replied. “Fuzzy pink _toaster_.” Angela shot him a look. “Sorry, fuzzy _fuchsia_ toaster.”

“Apology accepted,” Angela said. She flicked her turn signal. “How was your mom’s, anyway?”

Mike breathed in, finding himself looking out the window. “Fine, actually. Apparently, when you don’t see someone for eight years you end up having a lot to talk about. Did you know that Mr. Molina from Biology got arrested for tax evasion and money-laundering?”

“Green _is_ good,” Eric remarked. “Oh, did you sleep in your old room? With the _definitely_ -not-embarrassing football sheets?”

Mike laughed. “Well, no, because Mom cleared it out to build a home gym,” he clarified. “But _those_ sheets — the ones that I will defend until the very end — were still in the linen cupboard, so I broke it out for the glory of the fold-out couch.”

Angela’s nose wrinkled.

“Are those the ones with Tom Brady’s face copy-pasted on them a billion times? With his weird, dead eyes just — _staring_ at you in the dark?”

“God, that’s the memory you took away from the only sleepover we ever had together?” Mike shook his head. “For shame, Angela. For shame. And, yes, the very same sheets.”

“Ugh. I think I’m scarred just from thinking about them again.” Angela squinted at a passing sign. “Well, we’re nearly there. See, I told you I didn’t need directions.”

“Was that before or _after_ we got turned around on that byway?”

“During,” Eric said. “It was definitely during. Multiple times, even.”

“Just wanted to make sure,” Mike said. “ _Just_ wanted to make sure.”

“You know,” said Angela, “I _could_ throw this wheel. Right here, on this turn.”

Eric hummed. “Yeah, but then you’d damage the surfboards.”

“Good point,” Angela said, pulling into the car park above the beach. “You win this time, Yorkie. Just you wait.”

There was a path that went straight from the asphalt to the sand, but they decided to ignore it in lieu of scrambling down the rocks. Mike had always hated doing it in high school, but there was something intoxicating about it; scraping his knees from falling over had been annoying when he was a teenager and the idea of falling over itself had been downright terrifying. Now Mike was an RN, the ironic thing was that he just didn’t care about injuring himself that much anymore.

Or, rather, the _chance_ of it. Splitting his head open on a rock still didn’t sound like much fun.

“Okay,” Angela said, once they’d shimmied into their wetsuits in one of the beach’s changing rooms, “since Jessica’s not here, we don’t have anyone to watch our stuff. So — I’ll sit with our bags now, ‘cause I want to take some photos, but you can bet your white asses I’ll be switching with one of you in twenty minutes. I want to go out too.”

“I’m Asian,” said Eric. “I don’t have a white ass.”

Mike crossed his arms. “Yeah, Eric’s Asian.”

“Dude, I just said that.”

“Yeah, I know.”

They looked at each other and shrugged. Then they both turned to Angela, who was staring at them, unimpressed.

“I’m not even going to comment,” she said, which was probably comment enough. “Seriously, your twenty minutes has already started. I’m counting.”

As they waded through the water, Eric cleared his throat. “You know the future, right?”

“I’m familiar with the concept,” Mike said, “but I’m not psychic, dude. Not yet, anyway. Why?”

“Eh, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, lately,” Eric admitted. “Five year plan; what’s next for the company, et cetera, et cetera. Where I’m gonna be. What I’m gonna do. Where… everyone else is gonna be. Stuff like that.”

Mike blinked. “Well, I can tell you, man, the future’s not really been on my mind. It’s more like the past. Like there’s a massive puzzle called Mike Newton and I broke it all up at college and now someone’s following me around and putting it all back together again.”

“Oh,” Eric said. “The Cullens.”

“Not just that,” Mike said. “Sure, that’s a big part of it, but just — the being in Forks, the trying to reconcile with my mom thing, _everything_. D’you know, I actually worked a shift at Olympic Outfitters yesterday?”

“You’re kidding me,” Eric said. “Really? Did you get lunch from the café, like old times?”

“Nah,” Mike said. “Didn’t really have anyone to share it with. Coworker had mono and I only really used to get stuff from there because Bella liked the pecan pie.”

Eric laughed. “Man, we were so awful in high school,” he said. “Well, I mean, we’re still single and awful, so… not much has changed, but —”

“— But, hey, at least we’ve got health insurance,” Mike finished, hopping onto his board. “Anyway, we weren’t talking about high school. The future?”

“Yeah,” said Eric. “I think Angela’s going to move to New Haven. You know, to be with Cordelia. Jess — well, she’s not going to stay unemployed and lounging around in a bathrobe on our couch forever. I love her, but, seriously, man.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, after a moment. “Yeah, I caught Angela on her phone the other day and she said she was looking for another apartment. At the time, I thought it was a joke, but, no, that makes sense. Jessica’s going to get lawyering again, no doubt about it. She’s going to _Elle Woods_ us and leave us all in the dust. So it’ll just be you and me, buddy. I mean, unless you’re going as well. I won’t stop you, but —”

Eric shrugged, lying back on his board.

“I like LA,” he said, simply. “I like bossing people around over Skype. I like watching old WWE YouTube clips with you at 3AM when we both have to be up in the morning. I like drinking chai with Angela; I like rating random dogs on the street outside with Jess. I don’t know if I want it all to change.”

Mike sighed. “But that’s what happens, man,” he said. “I guess you just have to take stuff like life one day at a time. But I’m not going anywhere,” he added. “I like LA too.”

Eric smiled at him, then groaned.

“Ugh,” he said, rubbing a salty, wet hand over his face. “We’re going to be old cat ladies. They’re going to find us dead surrounded by litter trays and — and balls of wool.”

“It’s twine.”

“What?”

Mike splashed him. “Cats play with twine, not wool.”

“I’m pretty sure they play with both,” Eric said, and splashed Mike back, ignoring his indignant squawk. “You can’t tell cats what to do. They’re cats. They do what they want.”

A yell sounded from up the beach and Mike’s head turned. Angela was holding her phone high in the air, the screen facing them: probably, Mike thought, to show off the time, even though they definitely could not see it from that distance.

“I’ll go for the next shift,” Mike said, hopping off of his board and cringing as he was plunged back into the cold, La Push water. “You can muse a little more about the future.”

“We will all have hover-cars,” Eric predicted, his hands folded on his chest, “and my pet rock will be vice-president. It’s all looking bright, my friend.”

Chuckling, Mike walked back up to shore.

As he got closer to Angela, though, he realised that it wasn’t her phone she was holding — it was his.

“It went off,” she said, as an explanation. “I didn’t look at the messages, but whoever’s texting you seems to be doing it in a hurry.”

“It’s probably Barnes,” Mike said, taking the phone. “Guy’s not all that great at the whole nursing thing. I — Oh. Jessica. It’s Jessica.”

Angela crossed her arms over her wetsuit. “And?”

“ _And_ we haven’t really spoken since the whole surprising-me-with-my-Mom-at-the-airport-incident,” Mike said, frowning. He looked up. “Look, go, have fun. I can handle this.”

Angela arched an eyebrow, but she let him be as he sat down on the beach towel and unlocked his phone.

Jessica hadn’t been there at the door when Mike had shown up to the B&B, the surfboards he’d liberated from their confines at Olympic Outfitters propped against the wall. Apparently, she’d taken Carlisle up on the offer that he’d made to her in the bar — to spend a meal with the Cullen family.

Mike thumbed through the messages, propped up on his elbow. She’d sent him a few over the last couple of minutes: the earliest one was a simple ‘ _SOS’_ , but it seemed like Jessica had spiralled from there.

One detailed how the salad bowl had been specifically chosen by Bella to enact psychological warfare — ‘ _i s2g she smashed it on the floor and then put it back together to assert her dominance i can see the hot glue residue on the outside is this even safe to eat from’;_ another theorised on the seemingly mythical ability of the family to not be eating — _‘mikey Mike this is the best damn pie i have ever eaten but Rosalie keeps on watching me + her plate is completely untouched, what if they poisoned it lol can’t wait for the sweet release of death’._

Mike pressed the call button and held the phone up to his ear.

“ _Finally,”_ Jess said. “ _I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever reply.”_

“La Push, baby,” Mike offered as an explanation. He squinted, wondering if it was at all appropriate to call his ex-girlfriend ‘baby’, then decided that it was probably too awkward to backtrack and take it back. “Not that I’m complaining about the series of weird texts I’ve just discovered, but what the hell is going on over there?”

Jess sighed. “ _God, I don’t know,_ ” she said. “ _Seriously, rescue me. Mrs. Cullen is nice and all, but I get the feeling she’s going to rope me into a pyramid scheme selling essential oils. Edward keeps on looking at me and laughing and looking away like he, like, heard my thoughts. And I swear Rosalie and Bella are plotting to kill me and drain my blood and leave me in an alley for the wolves.”_

 _“‘_ Drain your blood’?” Mike laughed. “What are they, vampires?”

“ _I don’t know, you’re the one that’s obsessed with them,”_ Jessica replied, flippant. She paused, for a second. “ _Sorry, by the way. I felt_ so _bad after I went behind your back to talk to your mom. You don’t even know.”_

Mike got the feeling from her voice that she wasn’t sorry at all. It really rubbed him the wrong way — she’d taken the choice to reconcile away from him in a way, even though they actually _had_ , so maybe it _was_ irrational — but there was an edge to Jessica’s voice Mike just couldn’t ignore.

“Forgiven, not forgotten,” he said. “Because I am so changing my mom’s number in your phone to one of the burly guys from McCoy’s as payback. What’s going on, _really?”_

 _“Nothing much,”_ Jessica said. “ _Just having a mental breakdown in one of the Cullens’ five hundred bathrooms. It’s so shiny here. I can see my face in the tiles.”_

 _“You’re_ calling _me_ in the bathroom. Sorry,” Mike said, “it’s just that usually I’m the one on the other side of these conversations.”

“ _Yeah, yeah, yuck it up,”_ Jessica replied. She sighed. “ _I feel like I’m being so paranoid, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is off, you know? I mean, I can hold my own in court, but it seriously feels like I’m the one on trial with them basically interrogating me in all things post-Forks. And I don’t_ want _to tell them, but have you ever refused people that pretty? It’s_ so _hard, Mike.”_

A shadow fell over the beach towel. Mike looked up. Eric was stood there with Angela, well before the twenty-minute break was up. Mike pointed to his waterproof watch in confusion.

Eric pointed to the phone, and Mike cupped the speaker.

“What’s wrong with Jess?” he asked. “Your face was getting all scrunchy and old man-looking. Angela said you got some weird texts. How kinky?”

“Thanks, Eric,” Mike said. He uncovered the phone. “Do you want us to bail you out? We could say that Eric got gangrene. I’m a nurse, they’d probably buy it.”

“ _Carlisle’s a doctor,”_ Jessica pointed out. “ _But, God, please. I’m freaking out here, Mike.”_

 _“_ We’ll be there in thirty,” Mike promised, standing up. “You should probably think of some cool excuses, like, maybe, ‘ _Mike just won the X-Games and he needs a ride to the awards ceremony’._ That kind of thing.”

“ _Thanks, seriously,”_ Jessica said. “ _Wait. If you were in the X-Games, wouldn’t you already have a_ bike _to go to the awards ceremony with?”_

Mike hung up on her in response. He turned to Angela. “Have we got enough gas to get to the Cullens’ house?”

“Nope,” Angela said. She picked up her bag. “And you’re paying, no question about it.”

“Yippee,” said Mike, and rolled up the beach towel. “Autobots, roll out.”

* * *

The Cullen house was surrounded by trees, but its sleek structure seemed to say to Mike that there was more to it than met the eye.

Despite that, it still sprawled as far as the eye could see. White plaster and lacquered wood hung high above the minivan as Angela parallel-parked between a migraine-yellow Porsche and a Volvo that, Mike realised, was the same car he’d seen Edward Cullen driving in the hospital parking lot.

The front door opened. Mike sat up.

Jessica walked down the steps of the house, followed closely by one of the Cullens Mike had gone to high school with — _Alice_ , Mike remembered. They were talking to each other, but Alice’s eyes seemed to dart wildly around Jessica, like she was seeing something the other woman wasn’t. Her hand suddenly darted out, and a second later Jessica tumbled — said hand keeping her from falling into the meticulously-trimmed bushes beneath.

Angela whistled. “Nice reflexes.”

Mike nodded, eyebrows furrowed. “I’ll grab the door,” he said, unbuckling his seatbelt. Sure, there were ‘nice reflexes’, but there was also whatever _that_ was — a combination of Spidey-Sense and something… _else_.

…Not for the first time, Mike felt like he was becoming a conspiracy theorist.

Jessica and Alice stopped a few feet from the car, watching as he clambered out and went to open one of the passenger doors.

“Well, I see chivalry isn’t dead,” Alice remarked, her voice lilting, almost melodic. “Jessica, I am _so_ sorry to see you go this early. I hope your brother feels better soon, though.”

“Thanks,” said Jessica, ducking her head delicately. “He’s just always like this, this… _brother_ of mine. Mike?”

Mike, knowing that Jessica didn’t actually _have_ a brother, did not reply.

A look of confusion flickered over Alice Cullen’s face, but it quickly disappeared and was replaced with a knowing smile.

“Mike Newton, the nurse,” she said, looking him over. “Bachelor of Science in Nursing, graduated with honours. Not bad.”

“Right,” Mike said. “Jessica?”

“I swear,” Jessica said, “I did _not_ tell her _any_ of that.”

“I mean,” Alice continued, “I knew Carlisle was working with an old face, but not that it was _you_. And, to be fair, I don’t think _he_ even knows _you’re_ … you.”

Mike coughed. “Wait, how did you know all that?”

“I guess you could say I’m a little bit psychic,” she said, shrugging lightly. She smiled at Jessica. “Your brother’s going to be wondering where you are, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Jessica replied, after a quick second of forgetting her lie. As if to make up for it, she shimmied past Mike and into the passenger seat. “Eric, move up. You’re dripping wet.”

Mike, still trying to figure out what was happening, closed the door after her.

Alice gasped, as if she were remembering something. Her hands clasped together. “Oh, I _love_ this part!”

Mike turned around in surprise.

On cue, Carlisle had stepped out of the door. He was holding a black strappy purse — Jessica’s, Mike remembered — and had a harried look on his face. He sped-walked down the pavement, the bag swinging as he went.

“Alice,” Carlisle said, sliding it off of his shoulder, “thank God. I fear Jessica left without her bag. If you could just run — oh,” he broke off, taking in the stationary car, and Mike, standing to the side of it. He stuck out a hand. “I’m sorry, and you must be?”

Mike, surprising himself, didn’t hesitate. “Mike Newton.”

Carlisle’s hand wavered. “Mike?”

“That’s me,” Mike replied. “Nice to see you out of work.”

“But —” Carlisle shook his head vehemently. “You’re, you’re not — Oh,” he said. “I can’t believe it. Mike _Newton_. Bella’s friend. This _can’t_ be right.”

“I think you broke him,” Alice stage-whispered. “Oops.”

Mike couldn’t find it in himself to disagree. There he was — finally, telling the truth — and there was Carlisle, literally unable to reconcile the immature teenager that he’d been with the person Mike had become.

And it kind of hurt. Somehow, it felt _worse_ than the man not being able to remember Mike. Had he really been so different back then? Was it really that unreasonable, that _unbelievable_ that Mike had turned into, well, _Mike?_

Apparently, it was, judging by the look on the other man’s face.

“I better go,” Mike said, at last. “You know, lots of Forks to see on my vacation. The town, not the… implement.”

“Sure,” said Alice. “You run along. Let’s get you inside, Carlisle.”

As they drove away, Mike couldn’t help watching Alice and Carlisle in his wing-view mirror. They were quickly becoming two dots in the distance, but before they faded away Mike caught himself reading the small inscription decorating the bottom of the glass:

_Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear._

Mike closed his eyes and rested his head against the window, breathing out, breathing in.

* * *

“…So, do you want to go out sometime?”

Mike surreptitiously looked around, confirming what he already knew; he was, indeed, _already_ on a date. He was sat there, in the café near Olympic Outfitters, dressed up in the only semi-nice clothes that he’d remembered to pack for Forks.

And Ben Cheney was still sat opposite him, also on said date. Really, Mike thought, he should have expected something like this, especially considering that Ben also held the title of Worst Date Mike Had Ever Had.

Mike blinked. “Are we not doing that? Right now?”

Ben shrugged, drumming his fingers on the table. “I tend to not count first dates as actual dates.”

“This isn’t our first date,” Mike pointed out. “We’ve gone out before.”

Ben frowned. “What, really?”

“Yeah, back in high school.” Mike crossed his arms, leaning back in the booth. “We went to the mall. We watched a movie. We… shopped.” _I loaned you thirty dollars for your next date. Thirty dollars that I never got back,_ he thought.

 _“_ No offence,” Ben said, “but that sounds really lame. No wonder I didn’t remember it. Sorry,” he added. “I tend to be a little, y’know. Brusque.”

“I can see that,” said Mike. He sipped his coffee. “Look, not that this isn’t nice, but…” Mike trailed off.

Ben looked relieved. “Me too,” he said, at length. “Way too weird. The last time I saw you was at the Cullen wedding. Hey, I heard the _weirdest_ rumour about those two. God, I can’t recall it exactly, but I swear, man — something to do with, like, vampires. Or werewolves. Some kind of supernatural fringe role-play action. Crazy, huh?”

“Crazy,” a new voice agreed.

Mike looked up and nearly choked on his coffee.

Carlisle’s poker-face was immaculate as he stared down at Ben. “Mr. Cheney,” he greeted, composed. “Do you mind if I catch up with Mike, here?”

Ben’s eyes almost bulged out of his head. “Uh, yeah, sure. Totally,” he said, standing abruptly.

Mike watched as Ben rummaged around in his pockets, searching for what he eventually did produce — a pair of crisp ten-dollar bills. “Well, thanks —”

“— That should just about cover it,” Ben interrupted, shooting a glance between Mike and Carlisle. “I got to go, anyway. Places to go, people to see. You know how it is. So — bye, I guess.”

…With that, he left.

Mike stared after him. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “Carlisle —”

Carlisle sat down in Ben’s seat. “I’m sorry,” he said, plainly. “I should have recognised you.”

Mike sighed. “You shouldn’t be,” he said. “If anything, it’s my fault for getting so in my head. I mean, I wasn’t even very _memorable_ as a teenager. I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting.”

Carlisle began to stir the macchiato that Ben had left untouched. “I think you _were_ expecting something,” he gently rebutted. “I came here to listen, not to simply apologise. Please, go on.”

Mike drummed his fingers on the table, thinking. He _could_ talk about the innate, human desire to be recognised. That had certainly played a factor in his feelings — as irrational as they were — but something felt not-quite-whole about it. There _had_ to be more to the truth than that, he thought.

And, as Mike turned the problem over in his head, he realised that there was.

“My dad died when I was in college,” he started. “He was a life-long smoker, so we always kind of knew something would go wrong with his lungs. He used to joke about it, you know, he used to say — oh, ‘ _guess what my favourite kind of nuts are, Wedge?’_ — and I’d always fall for it and then fall apart laughing because the answer was always stupid, like ‘ _pack-a-day-mia nuts’._ My dad was a funny guy, that’s all I’m saying.”

Carlisle nodded, even though Mike knew he had no idea where this was going. “‘Wedge’?”

“ _That_ one’s my mom’s,” Mike admitted. “Wedge Antilles, the one guy in Star Wars that survived every battle. I got bullied a bunch as a kid, before I started hanging out with my friends, so she used to call me by that name to cheer me up.” He shrugged. “It stuck.”

“Fascinating,” Carlisle said. “Well —”

“— That name is for my mom to use alone. If you call me Wedge at work,” Mike elaborated, “I will end you. _I_ did not make a vow to do no harm.”

“Duly noted,” Carlisle said. “Please, continue.”

“Thank you,” said Mike, sobering. He pressed on. “My dad got in a car crash my first year of college. It was spring break, so I got on the first flight back to Forks. I spent three days sitting in the worst plastic chair ever, waiting for him to wake up. There was always this little voice in the back of my mind, though, saying that he wasn’t going to. And, eventually, that voice was joined by the specialist they put on the case.”

Carlisle nodded. There was no dawning look of comprehension on his face, but Mike knew that he had realised who he was talking about.

“When he finally did go, my dad, I kind of broke down. And the person to comfort me, once again, was that specialist. I don’t remember a lot from that week, but one thing that really stuck out was that doctor. I was having the worst time — ever — and, looking back, they probably had a million things to do that day, but I’ll always be grateful to him letting me cry it out on his shoulder. _Your_ shoulder.”

Carlisle put the wooden stirrer down on the plate in front of him. He hadn’t touched the coffee, Mike noticed. “So, what you were expecting was…”

“The chance to say thank you,” Mike confirmed. “Because, after my dad died, you were the only one who told me that it was okay to grieve. My mom kicked me out and my girlfriend and I broke up, but I was always able to think that what I was feeling — what I sometimes feel now — was okay. Was healthy. And I wanted, when I next saw you, to go up to you and tell you all this. Well,” Mike considered, “maybe not all _of_ it. I’d cut out the bit about the nuts.”

“When I didn’t recognise you, you lost that chance,” Carlisle said.

“Exactly,” said Mike. “I guess now I’ve said it out loud, it seems less trivial than I thought. I don’t think either of us are at fault, if there is a fault. When I started at the hospital, I tried my best to try and remember everyone — but after only two _days_ I started to forget. It wasn’t reasonable to think you’d remember me. I know that now, _especially_ after working in the same field. Even if I’m not a doctor like you.”

Carlisle hummed. “I appreciate that,” he said. He stuck his hand out. “Well, it is nice to be working with you, Mike. Los Angeles and nursing suits you. That, I can say for certain.”

Mike shook it briefly.

“I’ve had a lot of growing up to do,” he said. “But, yeah. It’s been really nice working with you too, Carlisle. Seriously.”

Carlisle smiled conspiratorially. “Do you think we should have told Ben that coffee in Forks doesn’t cost twenty dollars?”

“Well, as far as anyone here knows, we’re clueless,” Mike answered. “I mean, we live in LA. I spent sixty-five dollars on coffee in the last two weeks alone.”

Carlisle laughed. “Even with the coffee machine at the hospital?”

“Like I can get to it without a junior doctor stopping me?” Mike shook his head, then thought. “Hey, did I ever tell you about Barnes and that patient he thought had congenital insensitivity to pain?”

Carlisle shook his head, and as he launched into the story of what had happened just before he’d met him for the second time, Mike could have sworn he saw his skin in the sunlight — as he laughed — _sparkle_.

…Well, it _was_ the future, Mike thought. People could wear body glitter if they wanted. Who was he to judge?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
